Fish 'n' Chips

Hello Denizens of Yummiesville,

I just watched that Jamie Oliver speech again (if you haven't yet - click on the link on the post below this one. It's worth the time) and I gotta say it's moving. Moving enough that I'm going to share with you a recipe that'll clog your arteries with deliciousness in 15 seconds flat.

I jest, but I seriously only prepare this meal once in a blue moon due to the fat content. My recipe, however, is healthier than what you'll find in a restaurant, and you can make it even healthier by just using less oil. I sort of have the advantage of having a ridiculous metabolism so I can eat this stuff more often than your average Joe, which isn't fair, but hey, I'm going to enjoy it before it slows down too much.


Fish 'n' Chips a la Iain

Ingredients:
1.5 lb of white fish of your choice (catfish, cod, etc.)
4-6 medium-large russet potatoes
3/4 cup dark beer
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 eggs
1 tbs butter
canola oil for frying
3 cloves garlic
paprika
salt
malt vinegar and/or lemon
hearty ale

Music Listened To:
I do believe I listened to "Dancing Feet" by the Tannahill Weavers: one of the most awesome albums ever.

Procedure:

1. Start with the batter. This is virtually the same as what you'll find in the Joy of Cooking, but I do it my own ritualized way. Open up the beer and measure out 3/4 of a cup. You don't want it fizzy, so stir it a bit and let it sit while you do the rest. Combine the flour, salt and pepper with a whisk. Then separate the eggs, saving the whites in a bowl (one of the things you can do to make it healthier) and whisk the yolks into the batter. Nuke the butter and whisk that in as well. Lastly, whisk in the beer. Set the batter aside for about an hour.

2. Time to turn your attention to the taters. Preheat the oven to 450. Scrub them and prepare a large mixing bowl about 1/3-1/2 full of cold water next to the cutting board. Slice them into thick strips (to make them more chip-like than fry-like. And no, I don't mean crisp-like, you yank!) Set them into the cold water as you finish cutting them. When you finish setting them in the bowl, turn them so that the one on the bottom come to the top and the top go to the bottom so they get their turn to soak. In the meantime, mince the garlic. Prepare a clean towel or some paper towels and begin drying off the chips as you take them out of the bowl and begin arranging them on a well-oiled baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and garlic and (if you like) a little more oil before popping them in the oven. Set your timer for 40 minutes.

3. Fish time. If the pieces are thicker than half an inch, split them with your knife. Pare them down further if they look uncomfortably big. I usually aim for about 3"x6" fillets. An alternative, if you're feeling thrifty, is buy the catfish nuggets, which are really just as good as the fillets, but they've been trimmed away and hence are cheap and prevent waste. Get your assembly line ready: batter, fish plate, skillet with about 1/4 inch oil, and then, to the side, a plate with a paper towel to receive the finished fish. Whisk the egg whites into the batter and heat the oil on high (about 8 out of 10) Okay. Ready?

4. Frying. Okay, you're going to have to touch raw fish (I know, gross. Get over it :-p). Dip the fish on both sides in the batter so that it coats both sides and CAREFULLY lay it down in the oil. Use tongs to patch in any gaps in the coverage with more batter. Let the fish sizzle four minutes on a side, turning them with tongs until golden brown. When both sides are done (8 minutes for both sides), remove from the oil and set on the plate. To preserve the warmth, you may want to cover the plate or set it in the microwave. Proceed to the next batch of fish.


5. While you're having fun frying the fish, keep an eye on the timer. Check on the chips about every 10 minutes. You'll want to take them out about 15-20 minutes in and turn them with a spatula. Keep on checking them - if you notice them looking done (crispy and golden brown) or if some of them are starting to look burned, take them out before the 40 minutes are up! Sprinkle with salt and paprika and set them on a serving plate or bowl, lined with a paper towel. Usually they'll end up being done about half-way through the third (usually last) batch of fish. These'll be way healthier and (in my opinion) a bit yummier than restaurant chips.


6. Serve! Give yourself and your guests one or two hearty fillets of fish and a heap of chips. Sprinkle both with malt vinegar (if you can find it - it's probably in the international section) and serve with a pint. Enjoy!

I hope this dinner finds your belly well. It is heavy, it is one of the most expensive meals I make, BUT, it is freaking delicious. Also, people who eat fish tend to be happier than people who don't! True fact! Happy Lent!

Jamie Oliver's TED Wish

Hey folks. No recipes at the moment (although I think we've got both Fish and Chips and some southwest Indian cuisine coming up), but Jamie Oliver is one of Iain's favorite chefs, and this is an awesome speech that is well worth watching in its entirety.

Happy Sunday. :-)

新年快乐！

大家好！欢迎你们看这些中国很好吃的东西： 胡萝卜鸡蛋饺子！

Ok, so unless you are one of very few Chinese-speaking people I know of who read this blog, the above will have ranged from a series of boxes to some cool but undecipherable symbols. However, as some of you may know, Sunday was the Chinese New Year, and it is now officially the Year of the Tiger. Over at the school where I work there's been a lot of fuss over it, which has been cute--lots of kids cutting out red lanterns and writing baby calligraphy and the like. There are many, many traditions surrounding the Chinese New Year, and one of them is eating dumplings, because they are shaped like old Chinese money. Since the New Year celebration is in many ways focused on gaining luck for the year to come, it's only natural that money-shaped foods would be common.

When I lived in China two years ago, there was a restaurant around the corner from my school that my friends and I called "Dumpling Restaurant" because that was basically all they served. My favorite dumplings had a carrot and egg filling. Last year, I tried to make these, and it didn't go so well, but this year I was determined to get it right. And I did!! Incredibly, they're not even all that difficult or time-consuming. I've not been this psyched about a kitchen adventure for awhile, and coming from me that's saying something. So, without further adieu....

胡萝卜鸡蛋饺子- Huluobo Jidan Jiaozi- Carrot Egg Dumplings

Ingredients
(Disclaimer: This recipe was more improvised than usual, and thus the ingredients are less specific than usual. But I swear it works.)

Wrapper:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup rice flour (Note: most recipes I saw online didn't call for rice flour, so it's probably fine if you use all wheat. But I found that the rice flour made a more elastic as well as tasty dough).
• dash salt
• water as needed

Filling:

• 3 eggs
• 1 large carrot, grated
• 1 scallion, minced
• 1 in. ginger grated on the small side of the grater
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 TBS sesame seeds
• dash of soy sauce
• dash of rice vinegar
• small dash of sesame oil
  
• pinch of coriander
• pinch of white pepper
• pinch of black pepper
• small pinch sugar
• drizzle of mirin (sweetened sake. use whatever sweetener, really).
  
• drizzle of chili oil

Dipping Sauce

• 1 seeded, finely chopped thai pepper (or whatever spice. That's just what we had).
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• generous glug or two of rice vinegar
  
• dash ginger powder
• dash soy sauce
• small dash sesame oil
• drizzle of mirin (Or some other sweetener.)

Procedure

The Wrapper

• Combine the flours and salt and mix in enough water (in small amounts) to get a soft but not sticky dough.
• Knead the dough in the bowl for a minute or two and leave it for half an hour.
• After you prepare the filling (below), break off small pieces of dough (between nickel and quarter sized, I found) and roll them, flouring as needed, into very thin circles--close to translucent, if possible. We found that a rolling pin worked best for this, but you can try your hands if you like.
  
• Fill the circles with just enough filling so that the wrappers can close easily. You might mess a couple up figuring the exact amount out; don't worry about it. Put the filling in the center of each circle, dab a little water on the edge, and fold the wrapper in half, using the water to help close it. Pleat the edges to seal.

The Filling

• Scramble the eggs with some of the salt, a pinch of both peppers and coriander, and perhaps a fifth of the ginger and garlic. Make sure to scramble them until they're quite dry.
  
• Put the eggs into a bowl and mix all the other ingredients in, adding spice as needed. Break the egg up into little pieces. I found my hands were the best instrument for this.
• Once you fill the wrappers (see above), steam for 12-15 minutes, or until the wrappers turn sorta transparent and taste wonderfully chewy. A bamboo steamer is best for this, but we don't have one, so instead we used a metal colander placed over a few inches of boiling water. Our method of keeping the dumplings from sticking to each other--strips of wax paper between each dumpling--worked marginally well. It's sort of astounding how possible it is to improv in the kitchen. Serve with dipping sauce (below).
  

The Sauce

• Mix everything together in a small bowl and taste it. It should be spicy and good. This was basically my attempt to recreate and combine the little bowls of vinegar, hot sauce, and minced garlic that accompanied all of my Chinese dumplings.

Enjoy. A lot. And once again, Happy New Year! 新年快乐！

Raspberry-Filled Crepes of Awesomeness

Hello Yummiesites!

It has been a long time since I've last posted, as I have been rather busy and blah blah blah on with the crepes!

I bring to you today a special post for Valentine's Day food, in particular the Valentine's Day breakfast we just had of raspberry crepes. I've been making crepes for a couple years now, and they are, I must say, one of the most fun things to make in the world. And not all that hard, all told! This recipe is my own, but it greatly resembles recipes in various cook books, as crepe recipes are, all told, not THAT different from one another.

But mine is still the best.

Raspberry-Filled Crepes

Ingredients:
Crepes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
about a capful of vegetable oil
1/4 tsp of salt and/or a pinch of sugar

Filling:
1 package of frozen raspberries (it is winter, after all)
sugar
butter
water

Materials:
1 8-10 inch skillet
1 small mixing bowl
1 whisk
1 spatula
1 1/4 cup measure
1 saucepan or pot
1 wooden spoon
plate to place finished crepes on

Music Listened To:
Herbert Howells's St Paul's Short Service and Like as the Hart, i.e. two of my favorite choral pieces or all time.

Procedure:

Crepes:

1. Combine all the ingredients for crepes in the mixing bowl and combine with a whisk. Easy, no?

2. Heat up an oiled/buttered skillet on the stove top. Ask girlfriend to start making the filling. Hehehe. Wait for the skillet to be sizzlin' hot.

3. This process is the fun and tricky bit, which I have provided a video to demonstrate! Have your mixing bowl, 1/4 cup measure, spatula and plate all readily at hand while doing this! Okay. Use the 1/4 cup measure to pour batter into the skillet. Immediately set aside and tilt the skillet in a circular motion to spread the batter out into a thin layer covering the bottom. As soon as you see things start to solidify around the edges, use the spatula to loosen them up, as they're the most likely part to stick. Then jiggle the skillet until the crepe comes loose and slides easily along the bottom.

Now, some people say this is all you need to do, and the next step is to just set it on the plate after about a minute. To them I say boo! Hiss! You're leaving out the FUN part!

Now, flip the pancake with a flick of the wrist. That's really all it is. Just a flick of the wrist. If I can get a complete newbie to do it perfectly on their first try, you can do it too. It may take a couple tries to get it right, but don't worry. The real key is to just know that it's going to flip nicely. If it doesn't flip right, the number 1 reason is because it's sticking somewhere, so make sure it's wiggling free before doing it.

And here's a video demonstration:



4. Oil or butter up the skillet again every couple times, unless you have an awesome cast-iron skillet, in which case you should just have to keep it hot and things shouldn't stick.

Tada!















Filling:

The filling was pretty straightforward. Put the frozen fruit (you can really use any kind of berry or cherry when it comes down to it) in the saucepan over very low heat. Add a little bit of water, some butter and some sugar to taste and heat slowly, stirring often. It should look something like this:


And when it's all done, place crepes on a plate, place filling along the center and fold over each side to form a roll.

Then eat. Yay!

So, if you've tried no other recipe on this blog. Empower yourself through making crepes! Believe that you are a good cook and scream "I can make crepes! Take THAT!" to the world. Okay, this is getting wierd.

Please enjoy the pictures of other Valentine's Day food we made!


(Yes, this picture was taken with the plate sitting on top of snow)


(Those are biscuits)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ooey-Gooey-Crispy Mac and Cheese

We've been bad about posting the last couple weeks, not because we haven't been doing much cooking (we have) but because we've been busy and it's been cold and gross. Today is not cold and gross. Today is lovely and warm (relatively speaking), with a pale blue, winter sky. I heard birds chirping, and when I was walking from the bus stop home I didn't even need to wear my hat and mittens.

However, down in the dumps weather has its advantages-- namely the creation of some wonderful comfort foods. I have no idea where my Mom got this Mac and Cheese recipe (not that's it's so different from many other such recipes). I associate this with a well-thumbed index card, located on the front end of one of my Mom's many recipe boxes. In the interest of full disclosure, I don't have the exact recipe with me, and thus I might be missing an ingredient or two/have my proportions off, but what I've got works too. Enjoy.



Mac and Cheese à la Cohen

Ingredients

• 1 lb box of pasta (rotini works really well, as do shells, and of course you can't go wrong with elbows. I'd recommend shapes over spaghetti type noodles)
  
• 3 TBS butter
• 3 TBS all-purpose flour
• dash of worcestershire sauce
• 2 1/2-2 3/4 cup milk (I used 1%--the higher the fat content the richer the sauce. This could be a good or bad thing.)
• 1 lb cheddar cheese, grated
• dash of parmesan cheese
• toasted bread crumbs (about 2 slices of bread worth. I used a couple pieces of whole wheat bread, but use what you've got)
• salt and pepper to taste
• paprika (garnish)
  

Procedure

• Grease a casserole or a 9"x 13" pan. I prefer the deep-dish casserole types, but we don't have one. The 9"x13" is a decent substitute.
  
• Put up water to boil and prepare the pasta
• Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat (simple, right?). Add the flour and whisk vigorously for 2-3 minutes. It'll get super clumpy and golden-looking. Add the worcestershire sauce.
• Add the milk, slowly, stirring to eliminate lumps, and let cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring constantly. Milk burns super easily, so if this starts to happen you have the heat up too high. It should be on the low side of medium. Eventually, the milk will start to boil around the edges and thicken.
  
• Remove the roux (that's the white sauce you've just made--congrats) from the heat, and stir in most of the cheddar, reserving enough to sprinkle fairly generously over the top of whatever pan you're using. Continue to stir until the cheese has melted. If you need to, you can turn the heat back on and keep it on low.
• Dump the sauce onto the drained pasta and stir it up. At this point, it should look like a classy version of the stuff that comes out of a box. Season with salt and pepper.
  
• Once the pasta and sauce are sufficiently mixed, dump the whole thing into your pan, pre-heat the oven to 375°F and get ready for toppings.
• Sprinkle the bread crumbs all over the top of the Mac and Cheese and top them with the reserved cheddar and the parmesan. A dash of paprika makes a nice finishing touch.
• Bake for 15-30 minutes, until the cheese is crispy to your satisfaction.

As a side note, the unbaked casserole will stay happy in a fridge for a day or two. Also, the unbaked casserole is super yummy too, and, whenever I make this, a few noodles inevitably disappear before being properly baked.